from my site ..... http://thecowboyandtheindian.com/board/ ... .php?t=176

I was walking in my neighborhood of Valle Dorado…. And? …. Feeling pretty good...Thinking about my Indian being repaired and how close I came to almost losing it, walking my dog Molly and also thinking how close I came to losing her… I thought about the book I had read and re-read over and over a couple weeks back when the future was looking a little bleak and I was sick for almost a month.

Huck Finn by Mark Twain.
It was clarification.

Huck and Jim were in two parallel universes. The river, their raft on the Mississippi, the peacefulness of floating downstream… and then
the shore... towns, people, disillusionment served up as a constant reminder of why they set forth on their journey to begin with…the regret that would follow every time they committed the sin of stepping onto the bank.

In had what seemed like my only option at the time, I had left the river, hocked my raft, and almost parted company with my Jim. I had walked so far into town that I couldn’t see the river anymore, couldn’t remember what it looked like, or even if I would ever find my way back to it again.

Molly was just happy to see me as I was to see her.
Dogs have a way of keeping it real; we humans have lost that instinct somewhere along the way while we were climbing up that evolutionary ladder.

She looked at me wagging her tail, bouncing around, and licking her lips. She could not have been happier to see me even if I was made of Alpo. All of sudden she stopped and gave me a serious look as if to say.

You know…we should have never left the raft Huck!

“Yeah I know girl…I won’t make that mistake again”

This seemed pacify her and we continued our stroll down the boulevard, Molly wanting to play with every animate object while content with sniffing the inanimate ones.

Dog heaven must smell a lot like Mexico… I surmised...

Just then something caught her eye and she started howling with excitement... At first I assumed it was a cat; she has this weird fixation with felines that goes back a long way. They can scratch the shit out of her and she not only seems not to mind, she appears to love them all the more for it. She seems to bask in the “attention” brought forth from these new found friends which is delivered one claw at a time.
I usually just shake my head or end the “play time” before she gets really hurt.

Labradors are the “battered housewives” of the dog world …I concluded

But…not sighting anything even remotely resembled anything in the cat category, rather just a handful people selling second hand wares in front of their houses on the street. Normally a good cause for a couple of tail wags worth of excitement but hardly worthy of the canine cartwheels I was presently witnessing; I felt compelled to investigate further.

“What?” I asked.

She answered with about half a dozen nose nods to a middle table of three that were placed strategically in front of a combination apartment complex with a café below it.
At first I didn’t identify buried treasure amidst this pile of clothes, small appliances, and other assorted knick knacks.

She did though.... and she howled like a banshee so I continued to eyeball decipher through this maze...first through the knicks and then though the knacks until there it was. .. she had found it....

the treasure of the Sierra Madre

She had found the Holy Grail; a treasure so magnificent that it reminded me of a ten year old boy who upon receiving such a gift, would have not traded it in for a solid gold Cadillac....even had it been offered to him...

This item had tangible value while the materialistic silliness of older people appeared to cloud their judgment on what was really important in life until they could no longer recognize true treasure whilst they were tripping over it...

Molly recognized it.... had I not listened to her I would have likely walked by it also.... but...
she was going to have none of that, not today anyway, as she reiterated to me by commencing to howl again.

“Okay okay” I said “chill the fuck out.” And she sat down immediately; trying be obedient all the while attempting to contain, and with little success, her excitement.

I picked it up and held it for a minute recognizing that aroma at once, a scent I had long since forgotten, sweeter than any perfume I had smelled before or since.
I slipped it over my left hand and it felt like I remember it. The fit was perfect. It fit like?

It fit like a glove

I opened it up half expecting to see “Willy Mays” signature scrawled across it in black print but instead in block print were the words “Wilson-Licensed by MLB.”

Even though it was not in my budget that I have been meaning to make but never seem to get around to, I paid the man 200 peso (about 20 bucks) for the glove and five brand new baseballs, the latter of which when bagged up caused Molly lose all manner of obedience and self control just thinking about getting her teeth around one of those shiny white Spaldings.

“No fucking way.” I said to an instantly to a dejected and saddened hound. “You’ll chase it for awhile until you get tired and then you sit down on your fat ass and eat it.”

Sad look with a slight whimper.

“I am not going to give you a brand new baseball to fucking chew up…NO!”

Now the abandoned puppy dog eyes, trying to guilt me into giving up a finder’s fee for this refresher course in simplicity that she was attempting to take full credit for the teaching of...

“It is not going to happen.” I assured her

Then she stared at me for a second as if to say…

Ya know Huck, if you’d a listened to me last year, we’d still be on the raft…

“Nobody likes a smartass dog..” I said under my breath “Okay you can have one….but only one!”

and for awhile, I kept that promise.

   

Nice tale!